Dim sum in Hong Kong is served on practically every single street. When you visit family from half way around the world though, you are taken to the fanciest (read most expensive) dim sum restaurant at Sky Dining 101. This group of high-end restaurants are located at the top of the tallest building in Hong Kong – The International Commerce Center. Sky Boss is where carefully wrapped xia gao and sui mais are served on delicate porcelain plates along with an amazing panoramic promenade view of Tsim Sha Tsui – Hong Kong’s tourist hub overflowing with high end shops and fine dining restaurants.

China’s income inequality is prevalent, but also overlooked as rapid development has made it the norm for haves and have nots to live amongst one another.

China’s income inequality has become so apparent as the country progresses. Those who don’t or can’t keep up get left behind. Looking back at the photos I took, I realized I was too busy capturing what was new and shiny and forgot to look back at what China used to be – where my family came from.

The parts of China I neglected to capture were countryside migrant workers toiling in shifts to build massive condos at an unprecedented rate. I missed the groups of children breathing in an ever present cloud of construction dust and debris while they played in ripped rubber slippers. I looked past the expressionless faces of those who are just trying to endure one day at a time. This is China’s income inequality.

China has become more sophisticated, but not all of their habits have. This new wealth has led to an increase in Chinese tourists who have money, but no manners.

Chinese tourists and their crude behavior have received a lot of bad press. They wash their feet at the Lourve, shovel plates of food in Thailand, deface a 3,500 year old Egyptian temple, throw hot noodles at a Thai flight attendant – the list goes on. These tourists are now blacklisted from traveling. I hang my head in shame. All I can say in disgrace is, “Yea, I know but we’re not all like that.”

What reason could there possibly be for them to behave so repulsively? I am not justifying their actions. I just want to understand. China, as a country, has grown and developed at such a rapid pace that the people, clearly, have not caught up in mindset and etiquette. The influx of cash and investment has quickly made its way to China’s countryside. A growing population have the money, but not the manners, to travel abroad and represent themselves to a world outside of their country where certain actions are just not be acceptable in public.